A ‘news desert’ no longer — thanks to nonprofit news

Mya Blanchard delivered the following remarks at a Foundation community event in Nashua in September.

Good evening. I am Mya Blanchard, reporter for the Nashua Ink Link.

For those who don’t know, Nashua Ink Link is a hyperlocal online news source dedicated to keeping the community connected and informed on what is going on in their city.

Nashua Ink Link launched in February, with the goal of being a reliable news source in New Hampshire’s second largest city.

 Nashua Ink Link grew out of something known as a “news desert” — a place where major news sources have all but dried up due to the practical and financial strains of the news industry.

It started with a question coming from many people including Nashua city officials: “What is going on in Nashua?”

Last November, Melanie Plenda, Executive Director of the Granite State News Collaborative, and Carol Robidoux  — publisher and founder of the Manchester Ink Link — came together with the executive board of the collaborative — consisting of editors from papers around the state — to consider how the collaborative might help.

There was some grant funding available through the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to find a solution for Nashua. They talked about hiring some freelancers — but that didn’t solve the problem of making sure Nashua was represented.

Carol, who has operated Manchester Ink Link as an independent online news site for a decade, felt that it was important for Nashua to have a dedicated news source. She decided that if she could match the grant funding from the Charitable Foundation, all she would need to do was find a reporter interested in reporting on Nashua.

Luckily, Carol had just the person in mind: A budding journalist who had just graduated from Rivier University six months prior with a degree in English, who had no municipal reporting experience, and who she had never even met.

That budding journalist was me.

I am so grateful to Carol for taking a chance on me.

I wanted to be a journalist because I wanted to make a difference. I knew I had a voice that could inspire change. I also knew many don’t have a voice, and I wanted to speak up for them, too.

I had seen instances of journalists doing just that. Like Boston Globe reporters Matt Carroll, Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes, and editor Walter V. Robinson, who worked together to expose former priest John Geoghan for sexual abuse in 2002.

And Nellie Bly, whose reports on her 10 day stay in an asylum in New York in 1887 helped change the way those with mental illness are treated.

While these are not necessarily local news examples, they illustrate the power and importance of journalism, and how ever since the start of America itself, journalism has been here to serve as the eyes and ears of the public, and keep them informed.

Journalism is an essential part of democracy and community. It’s needed to hold officials accountable, celebrate victories, memorialize our greatest moments, and tell the stories of our communities.

To quote Melanie Plenda, “You can’t have a healthy community without it being an informed community.”

During my time with the Nashua Ink Link, I have reported on a proposed asphalt plant that received widespread opposition from the community.

I’ve met with Spanish-speaking parents who were finding it hard to have their voices heard when the Nashua Title 1 preschool closed.

 And I’ve met with social workers, staff and a client at the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter and learned about how New Hampshire’s ID laws are in some ways keeping people homeless. Less than two weeks after I published this story, the director of the New Hampshire DMV contacted the shelter to set up a meeting to discuss IDs.

Carol, Melanie and myself are so glad to be able to be expanding news in Nashua at a time when many news organizations are shrinking. We want to continue to build on the successes we’ve seen so far but it’s not an easy path forward. News organizations continue to struggle to be sustainable and to gain the trust of a community.

To keep delivering community news, New Hampshire’s news organizations need the strong support of their communities.

We are so appreciative and thankful for the support Nashua Ink Link has received in its first eight months from readers and supporters including the Charitable Foundation and the News Collaborative, as well as from corporate partnerships with St. Joseph Hospital, Solution Health and Brady Sullivan. We could not do this independent reporting on community issues without them.

Community needs journalism, and journalism needs community. We are excited for the future of journalism here in New Hampshire, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of Nashua’s continuing story.

Community needs journalism, and journalism needs community. We are excited for the future of journalism here in New Hampshire, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of Nashua’s continuing story.